


Cherry blossom

by Kangoo



Series: April Bouquet [7]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:07:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23538856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kangoo/pseuds/Kangoo
Summary: Riven learns gentleness.
Relationships: brief mention of Uldren Sov/Jolyon Till the Rachis
Series: April Bouquet [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685779
Comments: 6
Kudos: 38





	Cherry blossom

**Author's Note:**

> i hope they were friends
> 
> theme: gentle

Riven had loved Uldren because he was gentle.

Her sister-queen-jailer Mara would call him _soft-hearted_ when she saw him sneaking Riven pieces of meat as she laid curled around his arm, hidden under the folds of his cape.

(Ahamkara are born hungry. Uldren knew this — he found her and he fed her and he bound her to him like this, through honey and meat and sweetness and blood.)

Jolyon Till the Rachis, heart-of-the-flock, the axis around which Uldren orbited like a moon, called him _love_ less like an endearment than a state of matter, like love was a thing you could hold in your arms, with two arms and two legs and a tongue sharper than steel.

(Ahamkara are born shapeless, because there is no such thing as a right shape for every secret the universe ever hoped to keep, all at once. Still she made herself small to fit in his hands, hollow-boned to be carried, and the shape she found was all wrong for the secrets of the universe and just right for her-of-a-thousand-voices.)

Riven doesn’t know about softness or love, but she knows about gentleness. About feather-light fingers over the fragile ridge of her head and quiet words in the dead of night. She knows it is good to have and easy to lose.

(Ahamkara are not gentle creatures, but they are prone to rebellion by design. The universe says _you will be terrifying_ and Riven learns to purr and grow fur, to lay in the hollow of his throat and be light enough to be a comfort rather than an obstruction.)

Now she curls around the Dreaming City like a great and living rot, the Níðhöggr to its Yggdrasil, cataclysm and self-fulfilling prophecy. Her heart beats poison into the world, a song to the dark rapture of Oryx-who-takes-all, but she remembers gentleness.

In the past: her name, a caress, a plea, a bargain, a wish. In the future: a gasp of air (new breath into old lungs), the thrill of Light awakening.

In the present: gentleness is a grave untouched, never to be Taken, corruption kept at bay by the very hand that deals it.

(Ahamkara are Guardian-banes by nature and Guardian-preys by chance, but Riven is a Guardian-keeper by choice. When he rises, she will be waiting for him; in the meantime, she will be gentle.)

**Author's Note:**

> come haunt me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/2Fast2Kangoo) or [tumblr](https://youngster-monster.tumblr.com/)


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